Douglas Millar (Campbell River, British Columbia )
I was delighted to read “Golden Turbine” (AW&ST July 30, p. 14). I was one of the “team of 12 young gas turbine engineers” hired to start the turbine group at Longueil, Quebec, that eventually produced the PT6. After graduating from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, I worked in the Engine Lab of the National Research Council of Canada. One of my colleagues was Elvie Smith, and perhaps the most effective task I performed was persuading him to interview with Dick Guthrie of what is now Pratt & Whitney Canada.
As a pilot for Eastern Air Lines, I flew the A300 for 10 years. Airbus was years ahead of Boeing in the development of twin-engine widebody aircraft. The strength of the A320 design was demonstrated in 2009 during the “Miracle on the Hudson” crash in New York. Boeing may whine about Airbus coming to Mobile, Ala., but nowhere is it written that all commercial airliners be built in Seattle. Let's spread the wealth around this great country. Airbus builds “Magnificent Flying Machines” and Mobile is proud to be a part of it.
An Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) decision to postpone for a few years imposing regulations on emissions from leaded aviation gasoline gives the general aviation community longer lead time to find an unleaded replacement. But despite incremental progress toward potential alternatives, the majority of industry leaders believe that leaded aviation gasoline will remain a fixture, at least in the U.S., for some time.
Frank Wilson has been named senior vice president/general manager of the defense and security unit of the iRobot Corp., Bedford, Mass. He was sector vice president-business development and mission applications for electronic systems at BAE Systems.
Finnair and Air Berlin plan to expand their code-sharing program into Scandinavia and the Middle East, beginning Oct. 28. Passengers will be able to book travel for longer distances using a combination of the two airlines. The two airlines began code-sharing for flights in 2010.
Andrew Cullington (see photos) has become a geospatial intelligence consultant and Mark Richardson business development manager for Envitia, Horsham, England. Cullington was head of modelling and simulation for General Dynamics UK, and Richardson was an operational analyst and policy officer for the British Defense Ministry's intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance domain. He also was a political adviser to the commander and British deputy commander for the 2011 NATO operation over Libya.
In the race to create a new commercial space industry, the FAA is trying to establish rules for safely conveying crews and passengers into space. The Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee recently held the first of three teleconferences aiming to help the FAA craft regulations for the nascent industry. The discussion revolved around questions such as what level of safety and care should be expected. Former astronaut Livingston Holder, the chair of the systems working group, highlighted the difficulty of embarking on this regulatory journey.
Virgin America celebrated its fifth birthday this month in style with a party to mark its inaugural flight to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. With legions of loyal fans—close to 400,000 on the microblog site Twitter—and a reputation for digerati chic in its San Francisco base, the airline seems poised to carve out a successful niche in the U.S. market. Behind the cheers and confetti, however, lay an uncomfortable truth: In five years of operations, Virgin America has never turned a profit.
FL Technics Ulyanovsk, a subsidiary of Avia Solutions Group, has begun construction of a new maintenance, repair and overhaul center in Ulyanovsk, Russia. The $22 million facility, which will include two 8,000-sq.-meter (86,000-sq.-ft.) hangars, will open one by the beginning of 2015. Designed to service narrow- and widebody aircraft, the facility will feature a 3,000-sq.-meter aircraft parking platform and up to 500 workplaces for technical specialists.
Boeing has opted to enlarge its Portland, Ore., factory, a company center of excellence for complex machining, gear systems and flight controls, rather than turn to outside contractors as second sources.
Kathleen Meehan Coop has become vice president-education of the Challenger Center for Space Science Education, Alexandria, Va. She was director of the National Ocean Sciences Bowl at the Consortium for Ocean Leadership.
With a four-year contract offer last year that came as a surprise to the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), Boeing ended a nasty National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) suit and won peace into 2016 with its most militant labor union.
Competition in the Philippines' domestic regional airline market is heating up. At least three carriers plan to enter the fray in coming months, but rather face off directly against the large incumbents, they have a different strategy in mind.
The U.S. Navy is making strides in developing “networked” weapons that can be redirected in flight from any nearby aircraft carrying the right data-linking system. Raytheon's Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW) C-1 achieved just such a mission, retargeting from a small ship to a larger, maneuvering ship target during flight, as part of its first integrated test experiment. An F/A-18F Super Hornet released the glide bomb roughly 90 km (56 mi.) from the small ship, its first designated mark.
David W. Machuga has been named a senior fellow of the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, Arlington, Va. He is president and CEO of Elta North America and was head of the biometric and radio-frequency identification businesses for Northrop Grumman.
Tom Eff (see photos) has been promoted to senior vice president/general counsel/secretary from vice president at New York-based FlightSafety International. Three other promotions, also from vice president, are: Scott Fera to senior vice president-marketing; Greg McGowan to senior vice president-operations and Ken Motschwiller to senior vice president/CFO.
Edgar Orsi (see photo) has been named general manager of Gulfstream Aerospace Corp.'s service center in Sorocaba, Brazil. He was Sao Paulo-based South America aftermarket sales manager for Honeywell and had been its on-site technical and program manager for the Embraer 170 and 190.
Senior Editor Graham Warwick writes about the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency awarding SAIC a contract to develop an antisubmarine-warfare continuous trail unmanned vessel (Actuv) that can shadow a submerged submarine throughout its patrol. Specifics about this “submarine stalker,” can be found on the Ares defense blog. Marcase says:
While Qantas has seized the opportunity presented by Boeing's timetable problems to cancel its 35 787-9 orders, it has left the door open for the stretched variant to feature in its future fleet plans.
Russia's new regional Sukhoi Superjet 100 aircraft may lose its first customer—Armavia—if the parties cannot agree on the terms for delivery of two aircraft ordered in 2010. The dispute started in July when the Armenian airline threatened to cancel the delivery of the second SSJ100, due to failure to reach agreement on leasing terms worked out by Russian Vneshekonombank.
